RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE  10 December 1999

HUNGARY, CZECH REPUBLIC WANT EU MEMBERSHIP IN 2003. Czech
Foreign Minister Jan Kavan and his visiting Hungarian
counterpart, Janos Martonyi, on 9 December said they would
like their countries to gain EU membership in 2003, CTK
reported. Both ministers added that they will ask the EU to
include Slovakia in the EU's Schengen border control regime
before it enters the EU. Czech Chamber of Deputies Chairman
Vaclav Klaus, who also met with Martonyi, said the Hungarian
minister told him that "rivalry among individual candidate
countries" would be a "big mistake." Klaus noted that he
agreed with Martonyi on this matter. Finally, the Hungarian
minister joined President Vaclav Havel in condemning human
rights violations in Chechnya. VG

HUNGARIAN JOURNALIST'S CAR EXPLODES. A car owned by Hungarian
journalist and humorist Tivadar Farkashazy exploded in front
of his home after an unidentified person doused it with
gasoline and set it ablaze, AP reported. Farkashazy was among
13 journalists whom Hungarian Ambassador to the U.S. recently
described as "hired tools" of the communists. He is the
editor in chief of the biweekly "Hocipoe." In other news,
Hungary's three largest railway unions announced on 9
December that they will stage a nine-hour railway strike on
20 December to push for wage increases, Reuters reported. The
unions are demanding a 14 percent increase, while the
national railway company MAV is insisting on a 5.88 percent
raise. VG

HUNGARY TO HAVE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM. Culture Minister Jozsef
Hamori on 9 December announced that the government plans to
renovate and convert a disused Jewish synagogue in Budapest
into a Holocaust museum. The government will cover the 350
million forint ($1.40 million) cost of the project. The
museum is expected to open in 2001. Hamori said the museum
will fulfill an "old and just demand of both the Jewish
community and the Hungarian nation as a whole." He added that
it will serve as a memorial to the estimated 600,000 Jews and
30,000 Roma from Hungary who died in the Holocaust. VG

HUNGARY INVESTIGATING 'FALSE LETTERS' TO WORLD BANK.
Hungarian police are investigating allegations that
unidentified suspects sent forged letters to senior World
Bank officials in the name of Finance Minister Zsigmond
Jarai, according to an MTI report cited by the BBC. Gabor
Szabo, head of the office of the minister without portfolio
responsible for the civilian secret services, said the
forgery affair could "endanger the stability of the Hungarian
economy" and discredit the government. VG

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